1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric connector configured so as to hold a signal transmission medium by an elastic force of a lock member with a terminal portion of the signal transmission medium being inserted in an insulating housing up to a predetermined position therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in various electric apparatuses and others, various electric connectors are widely used as device for electrically connecting various signal transmission media such as a flexible printed circuit (FPC) and a flexible flat cable (FFC). For example, in an electric connector for use as being mounted on a printed wiring board as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-52993, a signal transmission medium formed of an FPC, an FFC, or the like is inserted into the inside of an insulating housing (an insulator) from its opening on a front end side, and then an actuator (connecting operation device) is rotated so as to be pushed down toward a connecting action position on a front side or a rear side of the connector by an operating force of an operator. With this, a part of a lock member falls in an engaging part provided in a terminal portion of the signal transmission medium to become in an engaged state, and the terminal portion of the signal transmission medium is held by the lock member in an approximately unmovable state.
As such, the electric connector including the actuator is configured to operate engagement and disengagement of the lock member by rotating the actuator between a connection release position and a connection acting position. Apart from a work of inserting the signal transmission medium (such as FPC or FFC), operating the actuator is required, thereby possibly posing a problem of work efficiency. For this reason, conventionally in some cases, an electric connector including a so-called one-action automatic lock mechanism may be adopted, the mechanism being configured so that a part of the lock member is elastically displaced so as to override the signal transmission medium inserted in the inside of the insulating housing and then the part of the lock member falls in the engaging part of the signal transmission medium for engagement. With the use of the electric connector including this one-action automatic lock mechanism, the signal transmission medium is held in an approximately unmovable state only by inserting the signal transmission medium in the electric connector up to the predetermined position therein, thereby achieving an improvement in work efficiency.
However, in the one-action automatic lock mechanism adopted in the conventional electric connector while there is an advantage of locking only with the signal transmission medium (such as FPC or FFC) being inserted in the electric connector, as described above, there is a problem such that it cannot be immediately checked or determined whether the signal transmission medium has been correctly inserted up to the predetermined position, whether the lock operation has been completed, or others, possibly requiring time and effort to finally check the completion of the work of connecting the signal transmission medium.